The Lamp in the Desert eBook

She still regarded him with wonder. “Oh,
my dear,” she said finally, “are you behind
me, or a very, very long way in front?”

He smiled faintly, grimly. “Probably a
thousand miles behind,” he said. “But
I have been given long sight, that’s all.”

She rose to her feet with a sigh. “And
I,” she said very sadly, “am blind.”

Down by the gate the blue jay laughed again, laughed
and flew away.

CHAPTER III

THE BEAST OF PREY

In a darkened room Netta Ermsted lay, trembling and
unnerved. As usual in cases of adversity, Mrs.
Ralston had taken charge of her; but there was very
little that she could do. It was more a matter
for her husband’s skill than for hers, and he
could only prescribe absolute quiet. For Netta
was utterly broken. Since the fatal moment when
she had returned from a call in her ’rickshaw
to find Major Burton awaiting her with the news that
Ermsted had been shot on the jungle-road while riding
home from Khanmulla, she had been as one distraught.
They had restrained her almost forcibly from rushing
forth to fling herself upon his dead body, and now
that it was all over, now that the man who had loved
her and whom she had never loved was in his grave,
she lay prostrate, refusing all comfort.

Tessa, wide-eyed and speculative, was in the care
of Mrs. Burton, alternately quarrelling vigorously
with little Cedric Burton whose intellectual leanings
provoked her most ardent contempt, and teasing the
luckless Scooter out of sheer boredom till all the
animal’s ideas in life centred in a desperate
desire to escape.

It was Tessa to whom Stella’s pitying attention
was first drawn on the day after her return to The
Green Bungalow. Tommy, finding her raging in
the road like a little tiger-cat over some small contretemps
with Mrs. Burton, had lifted her on to his shoulders
and brought her back with him.

“Be good to the poor imp!” he muttered
to his sister. “Nobody wants her.”

Certainly Mrs, Burton did not. She passed her
on to Stella with her two-edged smile, and Tessa and
Scooter forthwith cheerfully took up their abode at
The Green Bungalow with whole-hearted satisfaction.

Stella experienced little difficulty in dealing with
the child. She found herself the object of the
most passionate admiration which went far towards
simplifying the problem of managing her. Tessa
adored her and followed her like her shadow whenever
she was not similarly engrossed with her beloved Tommy.
Of Monck she stood in considerable awe. He did
not take much notice of her. It seemed to Stella
that he had retired very deeply into his shell of
reserve during those days. Even with herself
he was reticent, monosyllabic, obviously absorbed in
matters of which she had no knowledge.